01 février 2012

Are you ready for XMAN ?

After a one-week trial period Air Traffic Control the Netherlands (LVNL) and the Maastricht Upper Area Control Centre (MUAC) implemented the Arrival Management Message AMA, an extension of LVNLs Arrival Manager into MUACs Upper Airspace. This is an innovative milestone for the further development of the air traffic management system in the FABEC airspace.

An AMA message is sent electronically from Amsterdam to the Maastricht ATC system and contains essential information for managing air traffic inbound to Schiphol. The data received enables air traffic controllers to issue speed instructions at an early stage during the descent to destination. This results in a streamlined amount of traffic, improves flight efficiency, and can result in savings up to 110 kg of fuel per flight affected.

The introduction of AMA-messaging is an essential step in the implementation of a function in the air traffic management system that advises air traffic controllers about aircraft speed and the use of routes for aircraft inbound to Schiphol while they are still flying in the upper airspace. This function is being developed in the Speed And Route Advisor (SARA) project; one of the projects which are carried out at European level, as part of the strategy of the European Commission, with the aim to modernise the air traffic management system in the period until 2020. The implementation of this function makes traffic flows more predictable and stable, reduces the workload of air traffic controllers and cockpit crew and brings environmental and economical benefits.

For FABEC, the new data exchange between Amsterdam and Maastricht is an initial step to implement cross-border arrival management (XMAN) for the five major airports Paris, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Munich and due to its effect on FABEC operations London. The objective is to improve flight efficiency by enhancing the scope of continuous decent operations (CDO). Instead of the limited range of existing centre-internal arrival management systems XMAN will allow the planning of arrivals across centre boundaries within a range of approximately 200 nautical miles.